The Thursday! Newsletter 1-36: Make Yourself Feel A Feeling
Volume 1, Issue 36
Let's talk about feelings, shall we?
No, wait! Come back! It's not like that. No, no!
Okay, let me try that again. Let's talk about the feelings our art does or does not elicit in people that "consume" it (I don't like that word, but it works better than "experience" and covers all the ways you can get into a creative work, no matter the form it takes). But first, let's talk about patronage.
Did you know that you are the first patron of you art? It's true. The patron gets to see the art first, and sometimes exclusively. The patron often gets look at the art as the artist creates it. The patron gets to say, broadly, what kind of art the artist does and does not do. The patron is the one who, ultimately, has to be pleased with the art. That's you with your own art. Cool, huh?
That's important because when you see yourself as the person who has to approve your art, your attitude toward your art changes. No longer are you playing to a market whose preferences you can't accurately predict nor whose fidelity you can guarantee. No longer do your creative moods rise and all on whether your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. You don't even have to brag about whether it's better than mine. If your patron signs off on it, it's done. It's ready.
But there's a little catch. Ready? Here it is.
You, as the patron, don't have to like your art; but you do have to feel it.
Okay, that's kind of vague, but the idea of "feel" is kind of vague, isn't it? I'm not talking about feelings of approval -- good quality or bad quality, trash or treasure, fine literature or pulp hackery -- but about feelings in the heart and the gut. Did your story tug at your heart or make you laugh? Did your painting make you smile or tear up a little? Did you look at it for a moment and give it a satisfied nod? Did your song make your heart feel a little less heavy? Did that speech make you feel like you could storm the gates of Hell with a spritz bottle of holy water?
Do you know why so many people love the "Twilight" stories, even though the writing is absolutely atrocious? They make people feel sexy and pleased and a little bit dirty. The Harry Potter stories make people feel like heroes. The Lord of the Rings stories make people feel less small and useless. They all give people feelings. That is what art does. It makes people feel. Sometimes those feelings make people think, too, and that's an amazing bonus, but it's only a bonus because art isn't rational. You can't prove what is art and what is not. Everyone draws their own lines and creates their own definitions. Art speaks to the parts of us that aren't governed by rules and laws and numbers and graphs and various complicated formulas. Art is subjective.
Art delivers feelings, not proofs. That's also what makes art dangerous. It is why demagogues and evil people throughout history have striven so hard to control artists, which might be a subject for another newsletter. We artists need to be careful with out art as well. We wield a great power and, as Stan Lee was fond of reminding us, with great power comes great responsibility.
The emotional payload of art is why your role as patron is so important. If your art doesn't make you feel anything, it won't make anyone else feel anything either. I don't always like the stories and poems I write but if they make me feel something more than "meh", I'll turn them loose. They're likely to give other people the same feeling and maybe those people will like that feeling and think the thing I made is worth sharing and cherishing and they'll come looking for more. That's what I want, right? That's what all of us who make creative things want, don't we? I mean, don't we want people looking for more of our stuff?
Of course we do. We don't create just for ourselves. We create to share. We create to help. We create to arouse. We create to give someone a pleasant evening in an imaginary land we made up from nothing at all. We create to share our feelings in ways that make the most sense to us. But. You are the patron. You approve the art. You are the first, best audience. give yourself the feeling so you can give it to the rest of us.
And don't cheap out on it, either. Don't be afraid to load it up. Put love into what you do. Put despair or anguish or hope or yearning or glee into what you do. Give it some of your heart so that we can share it and feel what you feel and love what you love, just a little bit.
You art isn't rolling past you on an assembly line. Your art isn't a bunch of widgets in a box. Your art is...you. It's your feeling. It's your "hey, look at this cool thing". It's your chance to move someone's heart, starting with your own.
Might as well get that patron feeling stuff, huh?
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week
I like hero stories, even if the hero isn't what you expect, like in "A Wooby's Duty".
"Old Man Storm" is a poem inspired by my dislike for thunder.
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One Last Thing
This is where I ask you to help me out. I don't like asking for help but there's no way I can share Thursday! far and wide without wonderful people like you who dig what I do and are willing to tell other people about it. Please, feel free to share this or any past newsletter with anyone you think will love it like you do. You can also buy or share my cool book, give it a solid review, or get an autographed copy (ask and I'll tell you how!).
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